We knew there was some sort of tall ship festival which coincided with our time in Bergen, but we didn’t realise how very busy it would be. From afar, it all looked quite pretty.

There were some magnificently beautiful ships on display.

But it was 30°C heat, and we didn’t much enjoy navigating our way through the throng of people. It was hot; we were parched; we had to queue for ages just to get a drink, and these queues were in the full glare of the sun.

We headed off for Bryggen, Bergen’s wharf and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, parts of which are 300 years old. The facade fronting the water is famous, but for us, this day, there were too many banners and burgers.

We headed off into the narrow alleys between the buildings, hoping for some respite from both the sun and the crowds, but there was no escape from either.

Enough! Bergen was supposed to be one of the wettest cities in Europe! What was going on? We had dutifully packed our wet weather gear but it was clear we weren’t going to need it. Here we were, in the most glorious weather you could possibly imagine, and I found myself wishing it would rain!

Ah well, when the sun started to set and the heat began to fizzle out of the day we found our frustrations cooled too, and we began to enjoy Bergen slightly more.

At least, that was, until we tried to find somewhere for dinner and realised that every table in the city was taken by tall ship enthusiasts. Yep, the next day we were going to get out of the centre of Bergen and explore some quieter climbs.

Date of Visit: 24 July 2014

Points in this post (copy and paste the co-ordinates into Google Earth):